Consumer marketing directly adopted military counterinsurgency surveillance techniques

Evidence

Another mobile marketing firm recommends “life pattern marketing” based on techniques derived from military intelligence known as “patterns of life analysis.” These involve gathering location and other data from phones, satellites, vehicles, and sensors to assemble intelligence on the daily behavioral patterns of a “person of interest” in order to predict future behavior. Marketers are exhorted to “map the daily patterns” of a “target audience” in order to “intercept people in their daily routines with brand and promotional messages.” As the firm emphasizes, “The psychological power of the perception of ubiquity is profound. Life Pattern Marketing forms a powerful psychological imprint on consumers.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 760

Categorization

• SHARE: This military-to-marketing lineage transfer is exactly the kind of detail a friend interested in surveillance or advertising culture would want.
• SEED: Angle: tracing the specific doctrinal lineage of ‘patterns of life’ from drone warfare to retail notifications.
• XREF: connects to: The war technostructure outsourced demand creation to the attention industry — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 150; The US military weaponized social science and empathy in counterinsurgency doctrine

Broader Connections

• The war technostructure outsourced demand creation to the attention industry #expands (0.85) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 150
• The US military weaponized social science and empathy in counterinsurgency doctrine #expands (0.75)